


Open Bar

by WandersUnderStarlight



Series: What Makes A Monster [1]
Category: Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Fae & Fairies, M/M, Supernatural Elements, Vampires, Were-Creatures
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-11
Updated: 2018-10-12
Packaged: 2019-07-29 13:50:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16265507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WandersUnderStarlight/pseuds/WandersUnderStarlight
Summary: Writing Prompt: A local bartender regularly willingly hosts monsters and demons in his bar. When terrorists kidnap his children they learn the hard way how close he is to them.Replace "terrorists" with "gang" and "children" with "brother" and you'll see where my brain went with this.





	1. The Pack

Jazz wasn’t afraid of the things that went bump in the dark-cycle. Most of them were quite pleasant, actually. Just trying to live their lives like any “normal” cybertronian. 

He hadn’t meant to get involved with the secret supernatural community, Jazz had sort of just... stumbled into it by accident.

Jazz and his brother, Ricochet, had moved to Iacon, when they’d lost everything in Polyhex. The big city had seemed so full of promise and empty of old painful memories. Ricochet had gotten a job in an up and coming shipping company while encouraging Jazz to use their combined savings to start up his own venture. It had always been Jazz’s dream to own his own nightclub, and with his brother’s blessing, he opened The Beat.

At that point, Jazz’s view on the supernatural had been like most bots. It was a fun genre to read in datapads or watch on vids, but it wasn’t real.

Or so he’d thought.

That view had changed very quickly a deca-cycle after he’d opened The Beat’s doors in the Iaconian dark-cycle life.

It only took one scuffle breaking out between the local beastformer packs in the middle of the bar for his world view to flip aft over teakettle. After chasing off their rivals, the alpha of the winning pack had been very apologetic, offering to pay for the damages. Still in shock at the time, Jazz had just… rolled with it.

That, apparently, had been a signal to the supernatural community at large that his bar was a safe place to be themselves. And, hey, they were paying customers just like any “normal” bot who walked through the door. Sometimes they were more respectful of the rules than some normals.

Making friends with his regulars certainly made his life more interesting.

There was Mirage and Hound, Fair Folk from the winter and summer courts respectively. Mirage was clever and quiet, while Hound was possibly one of the sweetest beings Jazz had ever met. They used his bar as some sort of neutral ground to meet for courting. The fae had their own weird inter-political drama going on. 

All Jazz knew was that the two were very grateful to have a place where they could spend time together in comfort and relative privacy. 

Another set of regulars was a vampire named Red Alert and his mortal conjunx named Inferno. The vampire had been very paranoid at first, watchful and nervous as he half hid in a booth behind his conjunx. But after several deca-cycles, he slowly relaxed. Then, in an unexpected show of trust, Inferno had approached Jazz with a sealed container of his own mech-blood and asked him to mix it into a drink for Red Alert.

That had been a strange experience, but Jazz had obliged and his bar had become their regular haunt.

The beastformer pack that had started it all had claimed his bar as part of their territory. They were all fond of him in their own way. It had taken a while to learn them apart since they always traveled in groups of twos and threes and shared similar frame-types, both in their canis beastforms and mech-frames. Smokescreen, Bluestreak, Barricade, Skids, Nightbeat, and Streetwise.

Except for their alpha. A mech named Prowl. His face had been burned into Jazz’s memory ever since that first encounter. It was hard to forget the fanged denta and brilliant golden optics that had reverted to normal dulled incisors and concerned ice blue lenses in front of his visual center as the mech helped him up from where he’d been pushed down and out of the way of the short, but brutal fight.

His fuel pump still sped up when the beastformer was around, but it stemmed from Jazz’s hopeless attraction to the mech, not fear.

Jazz was almost certain that Prowl _knew_. How could he not? His pack certainly knew. What with all the pointed conversations and (gently) shoving him into the alpha’s space at any opportune moment. The beastformers were pretty servos-on to begin with; always reaching out to each other- tweaking doorwings, cuffing helms, tapping shoulder pauldrons; but with Jazz it was as if they were making sure that he had some of their nanites on him at all times, especially their alpha’s.

At first, Prowl had seemed unaffected by their antics, but lately he’d been touching Jazz more often of his own accord. A servo on his arm to get his attention, a light press of chassies against his own when he had to lean close to serve Prowl’s drink. And Prowl loomed when they stood next to each other for whatever reason. Polyhexian frames ran small and the beastformer had at least half a helm on him. 

It was all very confusing.

It had also recently gotten more complicated when Ricochet had come to The Beat to congratulate his brother on his successful venture.

He’d met and hit it off with Smokescreen. They had talked about their shared experiences in the shipping business. Smokescreen had definitely been interested, leaning into Ricochet’s space while his packmates had unsubtly ribbed him from across the room. And if the look on his brother’s face was anything to go by, he’d been intrigued as well.

But Ricochet didn’t know about the supernatural world that hid just beneath the thin veneer of their own. And while he’d been attracted to the charming blue and red mech, he’d also come to the wrong conclusion about the pack, thinking it was some sort of gang. He wasn’t necessarily wrong, but Jazz had held in the reflex to facepalm when Ricochet had worriedly questioned him about them.

Oblivious siblings and confused attraction aside, his life was stable, if weird. He liked that The Beat had become something of a haven to the creatures of the dark-cycle. He was always willing to lend a sympathetic audial and serve strange concoctions when needed.

Fitting, really, that it was a group of mortals who fragged up the status quo.

He received the comm. call one evening right before he opened as he was polishing the tables.

:’Ello?:

:Listen up, Poly. You will bring us one million shinax by tomorrow’s dark-cycle, or your brother dies.:

:Wh-wha’? Wha’ ‘ave ya done t’ Ricochet!?:

:Nothing… yet. And if you do as we say, he’ll be returned to you. We will send you the coordinates for the drop tomorrow, a joor before it is due. No Enforcers, or he dies, do you understand?:

:Y-yes.: Jazz choked out.

:Good, mech. And just for a little proof…:

A message popped up in his HUD. Jazz opened it and swallowed back a distressed sound as it revealed a holo-capture of Ricochet slumped in a chair, bound servo and pede.

:Until tomorrow, Poly.:

The comm. cut out.

Jazz sat down with a thump in one of the booths. 

A million shinax? How was he going to get that much money? Even if he emptied both his and Ricochet’s accounts, it wouldn’t be enough.

How? _Why?_

A strangled sob clawed its way out of his vocalizer as he buried his helm in his servos.

What could he do? He had to save Ricochet.

A muffled call of his name and knocking startled him out of his distraught panic. He looked up and saw the whole beastformer pack watching him anxiously though the plate glass window at the front of the bar. Jazz got up and stumbled to the door, unlocking it to let them in. They instantly surrounded him, hackles raised, glaring into corners as if trying to suss out what had upset him.

Prowl put his servos on Jazz arms. “What happened?”

Jazz couldn’t tell the Enforcers… but he could tell Prowl, right?

The Polyhexian sobbed, “S-some bots took Ricochet.” Out of the corner of his visor he saw Smokescreen tense up, plating shifting as he inadvertently started transforming. “If I don’ give them a million shinax by t’morrow, they’ll kill ‘im. If I call th’ Enforcers, they’ll kill ‘im. I can’t- I don’ ‘ave-” he broke off with another sob and closed the distance between them, burying his faceplates into Prowl’s chestplates. The beastformer’s arms immediately encircled him. Prowl’s chassie vibrated with a soothing, rumbled growl.

“It will be alright. We will take care of it.” Prowl’s voice was rougher than normal and when Jazz looked up at his face, he was unsurprised to find him half-shifted. Fangs crowded his mouth, pointed audial shells on his helm pricked forward and his optics were the color of liquid gold. 

Jazz had the most inappropriate desire to kiss him.

Perhaps Prowl picked up on it, for he leant forward and nuzzled Jazz’s helm.

“We will find him and rescue him, I promise.”

“But… how?”

“Ostensibly, by hunting.” A smooth cultured voice spoke up, startling growls out of the beastformers until they recognized the speaker.

“Mirage.” Prowl acknowledged the winter fae.

The white and blue mech stood just inside the now-closed door with Hound beside him.

“You know,” Mirage said nonchalantly, “I think this evening would benefit from a nice thick fog. Don’t you agree, Hound?”

The summer fae perked up. “You’re right.”

Jazz was confused. “Wha’ does tha’ ‘ave t’ do with anythin’?”

Mirage smiled slyly. “You see, the Fair Folk aren’t allowed to interfere directly with mortal affairs, but if one of my whims just happens to help conceal a pack of canis beastformers from mortal optics…”

Prowl nodded his helm in unspoken gratitude. Then he turned his attention back to Jazz. “We will return, soon. You should stay here and-”

Jazz pushed back out of the circle of Prowl’s arms. “No! I’m coming too. He’s my brother.”

“Oh, darling, a beastformer hunt is no place for a regular cybertronian.” Mirage said silkily. And before Jazz could react, the winter fae blew gently across his palm into Jazz’s face. A sparkling mist blinded the Polyhexian and sent him into recharge.

Prowl caught him as his body crumpled. He then placed the recharging mech on the plush seat of one of the larger booths.

“We will watch over him until you return.” Hound said.

Mirage pressed a palm to the window, optics pailing to a near-translucent white. Outside, the air thickened with white swirling fog as the cycle darkened.

Prowl’s sensor panels flicked up aggressively as he strode out the door, followed by his pack. 

It was time to hunt.


	2. The Hunt

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me: "This was only supposed to be two snippets!"  
> Prowl-muse: "It's not our fault that you have an overactive imagination."

Unlike regular cybertronians, beastformers had both two alt modes and two root modes. The beastformers who spent most of their time in cities used their mech root mode and vehicle alt mode most of the time to blend in with the general populous, but they also had a beast alt mode and a half-shift root mode. 

For Prowl, shifting into his canis alt form always felt like a luxurious stretch. His servos tips flipped and elongated into claws while the digits themselves shortened. His knee joints reversed smoothly. On his back, the proud doorwings flattened and slotted into his back plating and then the panels unlocked into hundreds of smaller panels that flicked up and down to gather sensory data to feed directly to his processor. Audial shells folded out from his helm and his faceplates elongated into a snout to hold all of his sharpened denta.

With the promise of a hunt singing under his plating, Prowl’s paws hit the pavement at a ground-eating lope. His pack were right behind him. He could feel them all through the pack-bond. Flanking him were his two litter mates. He, Smokescreen, and Bluestreak all shared the same turbowolf alt form. Beyond them spread out in a semicircle were Skids and Streetwise, both turbohounds, and Nightbeat, a hypercoyote. Slinking behind them, bringing up the rear was Barricade’s inky boltjackal form.

They traveled the few scant blocks to the apartment Jazz and Ricochet shared. The scent of the nanites Jazz had left behind outside the building lit up his olfactory, but that wasn’t the scent they needed. It was hard to ignore the rich, intoxicating fragrance, however he had enough self-control to search out the similar, yet less-interesting, smell of Jazz’s litter mate.

Smokescreen found it first.

His beta howled a call to the hunt.

Prowl didn’t fight the instinct to join his voice to the warning song. Bluestreak harmonized with their deep bass rumble, the lighter tenor baying of Skids and Streetwise filled out the middle, while Nightbeat’s thin alto and Barricade’s high undulating yowl rounded out the chilling chorus.

Prowl seamlessly switched positions with Smokescreen, the beta taking point and urging them into a casual canter as he followed his olfactory.

They had to pass through the Constructicon’s territory to keep on the trail. Fortunately the fog seemed to have kept the felidae inside their den tonight. Or maybe it had been the cacophony of howls. Scaredy cats. The pack of wirelions (pride, they called themselves- Prowl mentally scoffed at their arrogance) were nowhere to be found as the canis beastformers stalked through their streets. 

Halfway across the city they found a fresher concentration of Ricochet’s scent at a nondescript warehouse. Multiple other scents mixed with it. Chemotags left on the nanites were saturated with leftover emotion. Most telling, fear and anger. This must have been where he was taken. Perhaps lured by the promise of a contract for his shipping company, Prowl’s distant processor reasoned. 

The whys were less important right now. What was more relevant was the new trail. It led a few streets over to another warehouse, this one marked with a symbol of one of the prominent Iaconi gangs. Two mechs were posted outside openly carrying laser pistols. It was obvious that they was lookouts, but with the supernatural fog confusing their sensors, the pack approached unobserved.

Prowl gave a subsonic command, inaudible to the regular mechs. Barricade and Nightbeat broke off from the pack and slunk forward towards the unsuspecting guards.

They both went down in the murky darkness with barely a gasp. The scent of mech-blood drifted cloyingly in the haze.

The pack closed in. Another gruff command from Prowl had them transforming up into their half-shift root modes. Still mostly beast, but on two pedes with the use of their (clawed) servos.

Bluestreak hopped up silently onto a set of crates to keep watch over their backs.

Streetwise found the door controls for one of the docking bays. It creaked open, tendrils of fog spilling inwards like a living thing.

 

Ricochet had been trying to covertly get out of his bonds from the moment he’d come to strapped to a chair in an unknown room with strange mechs. They hadn’t bothered to censor their words around him. Mech-traffickers. They were planning on grabbing Jazz too, when he came to the drop off with the ransom money. And then selling them both. 

He had to escape before they went after Jazz. 

He hadn’t been able to make much progress on the titanium rope. The room he was in was the large open space of a warehouse. And while they’d placed his chair off to the side, he was exposed on all sides. There were at least ten of them that he’d seen coming in and out. Sometimes they settled down at a rickety table for fuel or to play a game. For the most part they left him alone, except to come over every now and then to make sure he hadn’t wiggled himself free.

He could only guess that they didn’t want to “damage the goods”.

An odd echoey creak caused the gang members to all freeze and then grab weapons with a chorus of curses. They stood and spread out in the room. Silence descended.

The one who’d been acting as the leader called out. “Rideshare, what’s going on? Why’d you open the door?”

No answer.

Was it Ricochet’s imagination, or was it getting foggy in here? No. It _was_. A distinct rolling mist was enveloping the room.

“Rideshare? Bolthole? Answer me, fragit!”

The lights cut out.

The gang members all raised their weapons.

As Ricochet’s visual center recalibrated to the dim moonlight coming in from the windows and skylights, a hulking, jagged figure materialized out of the gloom. Two points of gold lit the space where optics should be and reflected off grinning pearly-white fangs. A pointed snout lifted. A plating-prickling howl filled the space.

The room suddenly erupted into the sounds animalistic snarls, garbled screams, panicked gunshots and sickening crunching. Ricochet had to look away as the flashes of the laser pistols confused his visual center.

It was over very quickly. 

After a last plea for mercy cut off in a grotesque gargle. Ricochet risked a look up. If he was going to die tied to a chair he at least wanted to see what was going to kill him. 

The one gold-opticked figure was now seven stalking about the darkness of the room.

Ricochet wheezed out a frightened vent when one of those figures started to stalk _towards_ him.

It seemed to shrink a little as it came closer. The silhouette of doorwings rose from its back, the shadowed faceplates flattened. Then it stepped into a patch of moonlight revealing familiar blue and red plating.

“S-Smokescreen?”

 

There was his quarry. Bloodlust had been sated on those who had dared take _(mine/delicious/beautiful)_ Ricochet. Blue fluid dripped from his teeth as testament to his success. Smokescreen prowled up to the bound mech. Still-clawed digits sliced through the titanium rope as if it were filigree, but were oh-so-gentle as he hoisted the _(fragile/protect)_ smaller Polyhexian up out of the chair by the underside of his bumper. 

“Ricochet.” His voice was a gruff parody of his normal charming lilt. He grinned viciously; mouth full of too-sharp denta _(victory/claim/worthy)_. “Mine.”

Drunk off the hunt, the blue and red beastformer claimed his surprised prize with a mech-blood flavored kiss.

“Smokescreen.” Prowl’s commanding voice pulled him away from his reward with a snarl. “Control yourself.” His alpha growled, the basso rumble causing him to instinctively flinch, whine and offer up his throat cables contritely.

It also broke him out of his haze. He took a couple of shaky vents and completed his transformation back to full mech form. He glanced at Ricochet, who was looking at him in a mixture of fear and gratitude. Perhaps with a little shock thrown in… Okay, definitely shock. Blue stained around his mouth. Smokescreen wiped at his own mouth self-consciously.

“Please don’t freak out.” He whispered.

“I… ya’re a beastformer.”

“Yes.”

“I, um, thought you were in a gang.”

“Oh… is me being a beastformer better?”

“...Yeah. Yeah. we’re gonna go with better.”

“Ha!” the laugh yanked itself from Smokescreen’s chest in a tumble of mirth and relief.

“Jazzy knows ‘bout ya’ll, doesn’t ‘e?”

“Yes.”

Ricochet looked worried. “Is Jazz okay? They were goin’ t’ go after ‘im, too.”

“ _They_ won’t be doing anything except meeting their maker.” Prowl growled out of the darkness.

Ricochet shuddered and carefully kept his visor off the mist wreathed ground.

“Can… can we get outta ‘ere?”

Skid’s voice came from the dark. “Yes, we should leave before we are discovered here, alpha.”

Prowl gave another subsonic order. The others shifted to their canis forms.

Smokescreen gave Ricochet a winning smile. “Give you a ride back to The Beat. It’ll be difficult for you to see in this fog.”

“Wha’?”

To his credit, the Polyhexian only stumbled back two steps in shock when Smokescreen shifted into his canis alt mode right in front of him. Anybot would be startled by a mech suddenly becoming a vehicle-sized turbowolf. The beastformer smoothed down the tiny, spiky sensor panels on his back. He crouched down.

“Ride?”

Ricochet let out a shaky vent. “Sure. Ain’t like my cycle coul’ get any weirder.”

Smokescreen tamped down the joy that spun through his spark when the mech bravely climbed up onto his back, wrapping his arms and legs around him. He also ignored the subsonic encouragement and vaguely suggestive amusement that came over the pack bond.

His sensors were filled with the touch and smell of Ricochet as they ran through the enshrouded streets back to The Beat.


	3. The Return

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here's the last bit of this snippet! This muse bit me hard, so expect more snippets out of this AU soon as well as chapters for An Offer He Can't Refuse.

Jazz woke up feeling both refreshed and also pissed off. His chronometer told him it was about two joors since he’d taken his impromptu nap.

He sat up from the plush cushions of the oversized booth he’d installed for larger frames and scooted to the edge of the seat. His pedes dangled off the side. Hound, who had been hovering nearby, stepped up to him before he could hop down and offered him a small, perfectly round sphere of silver.

“Here, eat this. It will make you feel better.”

Jazz took the sphere mechanically and bit into the soft, sweet metal. The flavor somehow reminded him of a time when he was just a youngling in Polyhex, laying in the soft tingrass by a gently bubbling energon brook and gazing up at the sunlight dancing through the crystals. It was deliciously pure with no imperfections in it.

Of course it was. Hound had probably grown it out of his aft or something, Jazz thought uncharitably. Jazz was immediately ashamed of his thoughts. Hound was just trying to help and didn’t deserve Jazz’s anger.

No. That honor went to the “mech” sitting next to the window. The glass was completely coated in frost around the winter fae’s servo, obscuring the outside. Mirage had shed his glamor at some point, showing off his natural ice and crystal plating and his offensively beautiful faceplates.

“Awake are we?” Mirage asked, turning glittering, translucent optics on him.

“I ain’t talkin’ t’ ya righ’ now.” Jazz grumbled, petulantly stuffing the rest of the silver into his mouth. The next thought that ran through his mind was that he probably shouldn’t upset a powerful fae, but fortunately Mirage just looked amused.

He smiled slyly. “Of course. Hound, please tell Jazz that I was only looking out for my favorite mortal.”

The summer fae looked at Jazz with an adorably helpless, “Um…”

Jazz swallowed down his treat. “Hound, please tell Mirage tha’ blowin’ magic into bots faces is rude.”

“Hound, please tell Jazz that I was merely using a gentle method to keep him from harm. Not that Prowl would have let you go along, but he might have just tied you to a chair. So barbaric.”

“Prowl ain’t th’ boss o’ me!” Jazz snapped, glaring at the fae.

“No, of course not.” Mirage agreed placidly. “But beastformers are notoriously protective of those they care for.”

It was said so matter-of-factly that bashful embarrassment blushed though Jazz EMF.

“It’s good that you are here. Safe.” 

The voice emerging from the darkest corner of the room caused Jazz to nearly jump out of his plating in fright before he realized that he recognized it.

“Red Alert? When did ya get here?”

Mirage scoffed. “He showed up not long after the pack left. The wards that Hound and I set around this place should have warned off any others tonight, but” he sighed dramatically, chilled, condensed vapor billowing out of his vents, “it is so very difficult to keep a vampire out of public spaces.”

“I saw the danger.” Red Alert defended, stepping out from the corner. “I came to help. I told Inferno to stay home to keep _him_ safe.” His sickly pale optics darted to and fro. In his servos was a turborat as long as his arm. Its whiskers quivered, beady little optics gleaming strangely.

“Nice pet?” Jazz said cautiously.

The vampire tilted his helm, giving Jazz a peculiar look. “He is one of my ghouls.”

“O...kay? Wha’s a ghoul?”

Hound grimaced. “Ghouls are... servants. To vampires.”

Red Alert frowned and stepped closer. “They are bound to me. I feed them a bit of my mech-blood and they are loyal. They are my optics all over the city.”

Jazz felt a little sick twist in his tank. “Uh, do ya do tha’ t’ bots?” 

The vampire stroked the turborat’s helm with a single digit while keeping his unnerving optics on Jazz. “No. Just turborats, they’re trustworthy. I don’t trust bots. Just rats… and Inferno. Sometimes you.”

“Thanks. I think.”

Red Alert gave a tiny smile, though whether it was in true gratitude or amusement was hard to tell. “You’re welcome.”

A muffled howl from the outside filled the air.

“Ah. The hunters return, victorious.” Mirage sighed, removing his servo from the window.

Jazz hopped up from the booth, suddenly filled with nervous energy. Red Alert retreated back into the shadows.

A few breems later there was the sound of multiple transformations outside and then the front door opened. Prowl strode in first with Ricochet just behind him and the pack trailing in after.

Jazz nearly ran the few short steps to Ricochet and pulled him into a hard hug. Ricochet hugged back just as tightly.

“Primus, I was so scared! Are ya alrigh’?”

“I’m okay, Jazzy. I’m okay. Are _ya_ okay?”

“Am _I_ okay? _Ya_ were th’ one kidnapped!”

Ricochet pulled back slightly so they could see each other’s visors. “Yeah, I had… uh, quite th’ rescue party.” He looked around and jumped at the sight of the un-glamored fae. His arms tightened reflexively around his brother.

“Hey, it’s okay,” Jazz said soothingly, “I’ll explain everythin’. But first, let me re-introduce ya to my friends.”


End file.
